Tuesday, 25 July 2017

The Underground Railway by Colson Whitehead

I try so hard to read good
books, worthy books and books that I will learn from. But sometimes I
just need a book that will grab me and take me out of the world and refuse to
let go. In other words a good story that I have to drop everything
for. The cover of The Underground Railway says “Winner of the National
Book Award” and “Winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction 2017”. In the
past the grand titles have meant that a book is likely to be worthy, but no
guarantee that it is interesting enough to hold my often goldfish level
attention.

The Underground Railway tells
the story of a young woman called Cora from a cotton plantation in Georgia who
decides to try and escape the utter misery and horror of life as a slave.
We follow her on her journey, with a slave catcher in pursuit. The book
doesn’t hold back when describing the horrific treatment of slaves at every
step of their life. It also throws light on the plight of freed men and
women, who despite not being slaves are completely at the mercy of the whims of
white people of the time.

The book highlights the
thinking of the time that stated non-whites were inferior, barely human and
even sinful (from the biblical story of Ham), requiring control and discipline
or punishment from white people. Even those who are considered to be
comparatively sympathetic are shown to treat black people as subjects of
ridicule of experimentation.

On her journey Cora also
provides us with a window into the other forms of persecution of the time,
whether medical experiments, arbitrary violence against black people, or the
“clearing” of whole towns of any black people through public lynching’s.

The Underground Railway is
written in clear, forceful prose. The writer often builds up tension and
suspense and then resolves it so suddenly and quickly that within a sentence
the awful has happened, barely leaving you time to feel the full horror
of a situation.

Cora is a complex protagonist,
veering from thinking deeply about her situation only to dismiss itto being
driven by a profound anger at her situation. Interestingly, she never
buys into the negative narrative about her race and situation. She is
always crystal clear that there has been an injustice against her race and that
they are deserving of justice and freedom, that the slave owners and
sympathisers are the sinners and

The book moves from brutal
scenes of violence to contemplative passages, meditating on the situation of
the people. Colson Whitehead’s writing and the themes of this book
reminded me of the books of Tony Morrison, one of my favourite writers: moving,
often painful to read, leaving you brimming with anger at the injustices
brought down on generations of people in the name of money and justified
through both religion and science. Part polemic, part history lesson,
this is a fascinating and engaging story, I think I will keep hold of this book
for the my children to read.

About me

My passions include writing, books, bargain-hunting, dawah, crafts (cards, banners and jewellery), art, travel with my children, henna, being organised and the English countryside. You can contact me at umm_salihah@yahoo.co.uk